A Diffractive Reading of the Messy Entanglements Between Mainstream Contemporary Art, Sci-Art and New Media Art

Symposium:

• ISEA2013: 19th International Symposium on Electronic Art

• Media Art, Mediation and Contemporary Art

• A Diffractive Reading of the Messy Entanglements Between Mainstream Contemporary Art, Sci-Art and New Media Art

• Jane Prophet
• Helen Pritchard

Venue(s):

• The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

• Panel: Media Art, Mediation and Contemporary Art

  We engage with Karen Barad’s notion of diffraction to re-evaluate the relations between Mainstream Contemporary Art (MCA), New Media Art (NMA) and SciArt. Our diffractive reading highlights small but consequential differences between these art practices. We do not smooth over the tensions highlighted in earlier discussions of  NMA, MCA and SciArt in Prophet’s paper The Artist in the Laboratory: Co-operating (T)reasonably. Instead we suggest that there are entanglements, as well as productive differences between these practices, and we extend the debate by considering which differences matter, for whom (artists, gallerists, scientists) and how these differences emerge through material-discursive intra-actions.

Category:

• Panel